STUDENT DRUG USE RISING IN ONTARIO, STUDY SAYS

Ontario students are not afraid to try most illicit drugs, with cocaine and
cannabis use on the rise and binge drinking remaining a problem, according
to a study released yesterday.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health's Ontario student drug use
study, the longest continuing school survey of young people in the country,
found that since the early 1990s, the risk perception surrounding most drug
use, except ecstasy, has gradually weakened. The study, which spans more
than two decades, is a signal of what is happening across the country,
researchers say.

"Ecstasy is perceived as a much more risky adventure, and in the interim
cocaine [use] has risen somewhat. So we have . . . perhaps a substitution
occurring," Edward Adlaf, the centre's senior scientist and lead
researcher, said at a news conference yesterday.

Ecstasy use among students this year was 4.1 per cent, down from 6 per cent
in 2001, the survey found. But cocaine and marijuana use continued on an
upward trend, with mainly girls increasing their use of the latter drug.
The reported availability of both drugs has increased significantly since 1989.

Binge drinking, meanwhile, remains at elevated levels. Twenty-five per cent
of students surveyed consume five or more drinks in a single sitting,
compared with 15 per cent who drank that much 10 years earlier, Dr. Adlaf said.

There was some good news. The escalating trend in adolescent drug use
experienced in the early 1990s is waning, Dr. Adlaf said.

But he cautioned that some red flags remain. Students started turning their
backs on ecstasy after it came under the spotlight for its adverse effects,
but they have replaced it with other drugs, he said.

About 6,600 students participated in the survey last spring, with all data
based on anonymous self-reporting from questionnaires distributed and
completed in classrooms. Researchers noted that one-third of students do
not consume any substance, including alcohol or tobacco.

Still, health officials at the centre are troubled by students' binge
drinking, especially with one in seven driving within an hour of consuming
two or more drinks.

"We're particularly concerned that youth still do not recognize that binge
drinking is a hazardous and serious threat to their health," said Peter
Coleridge, vice-president of communications, education and community health
at the centre.